Our article comes from the March 8, 1850 edition of The Athens Post. In the story of the "Noble Conduct of a Slave", there was a fire burning down the village of Sparta. The fire reached the home of a slave master who could not a find any way to escape. While trapped in his burning home, his slave ran into the house and saved him by throwing a feather bed out the window and throwing his slave master on to it after. This act performed by the slave shows that some slaves were surprisingly willing to help their slave master while they were in a time of need. It also displays that some slaves could look past the harsh treatment that they received from their slave master and still do the honorable thing for them.  

Thinking in a sense that the slaves tried to see the best in their oppressors, it is easy to assume that some slaves might have respected their master. Fredrick Douglass, who was an African American slave and later abolitionist, said of slaves: "They are apt to think their condition better than that that of others. Many, under the influence of this prejudice, think their own masters are better than the masters of other slaves; and this, too, in some cases, when the very reverse is true" (Douglass). Another component that plays a role in this virtuous act of the slave is how some slave masters treated their slaves. While there were many masters who treated their slaves viciously, some slave owners gave their slaves great responsibility and rewards if they acted loyally. Some slaves would take on this responsibility with pride and find meaning in a life of servitude for someone they respected. In this article, this enslaved person showed that they are a very good person with respectable morals, rather than an animal, like their white masters would believe them to be. This slave would think that just because this man had wronged him, the right thing to do is save that human’s life. Though the exact reasoning for this slave’s actions in Sparta are not defined within the article, it is simple to assume that this slave did not care for his master, but rather felt a sort of guilt into saving him.

The question that is run into when talking about morals is: would the slave-master have done the same thing for one of his slaves? It could be very easy to dismiss the question with a simple no, but shouldn’t we think otherwise? Maybe that enslaved man or woman has been treated extremely unfairly already or perhaps the slave-master simply feels like he owes his slaves something better than what they have had so far. Human empathy is a tricky thing, especially when it involves individuals that are taken for free labor. 

This article allows the reader to glimpse into a smaller incident that may have been forgotten if the Athens Post did not chronicle the event. The actions the slave took may not have changed the way slaves were looked at on a social scale overall to our chagrin, but it is sure to have made an impact on how that specific slave-master saw his workers.